


How Sweet it Is

by storiesgivemelife



Category: Homestuck
Genre: EDIT TO ADD:, M/M, Other, Pale, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, also, also gamzee has a fucked up past, and then nonexplicit references to generally being kicked around like shit, as the best pale is, but here you are!, but i promise sweet fluff will in fact come, but kinda h/c, but yeah, h/c, hemoflip, i don't know how to do warnings right?, karkat is occasionally full of sads and despair, kinkmeme fill, lots of food mention, mostly toothachingly sweet fluff, the boys are determined to hurt before they comfort, this is just for certain turning into genuine, tiny!Gamzee, warning for child abandonment as usual, which is also kind of to be expected, which is kind of to be expected, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4223790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesgivemelife/pseuds/storiesgivemelife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An incredibly sweet tale of pale romance happening in the most unexpected of ways and when you'd just about given up. Hemospectrum flip, candymaker!Karkat, tiny!feral!Gamzee, as requested on kinkmeme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Filling this kinkmeme prompt (http://homesmut.dreamwidth.org/40248.html?thread=46504248). Hemospectrum flip, no SGRUB. Karkat is still considered a mutant anomaly, but general public opinion tends towards his mutation being considered a good omen of some kind. At nine sweeps old, he’s a very successful candymaker, and handles personal and official orders for Her Imperial Evanescence Aradia Medigo. Life is relatively smooth, and his vintage shitfits these days are mostly directed at improperly cooled taffy, incompetent help, and truly incorrigible customers. No quadrants filled for him - they always seem to either just sort of die out slowly and pathetically or explode, and besides, he’s content doing what he’s doing, right?
> 
> Then, he starts hearing noises in his ductwork.
> 
> That would be the feral tiny indigoblood.

Your INTERESTS these days tend towards the confectionary. Your candymaking business is going so well that Her Imperial Evanescence has not only placed personal orders with you (which isn’t that surprising - Aradia was hatchmates with you, even if by now her rapid lifespan means she’s more mature than you’re likely to be for sweeps yet), but she’s also had you fill an order for the official 12th Perigee’s Eve gala at the Palace. You even received an INVITATION, but you plan on sending your regrets with the candy order; you just don’t feel up to dealing with all the IDIOTS who won’t stop asking you QUESTIONS at these sorts of things. Just because you have MUTANT BLOOD doesn’t make you anything special, no matter what those weird cultists say - and besides, you don’t have any QUADRANTMATES to take with you. Between the slow death of one kismessitude and the flashy, messy end of your last attempt to be the middle leaf of a club, you’re not interested in ROMANCE anymore anyway. At least not personally.

 

You stand in the entryway of your respiteblock, taking a deep breath. It’s nearly morning, but the gala’s order is finally done, and you got to have several very satisfying rants today (one at improperly cooling taffy, two at various incompetent assistants, and a truly glorious vintage shitfit directed at an absolutely incorrigible customer.) You want nothing more than to sit back, put on one of your guilty-pleasure romcoms, and have a pleasantly unremarkable morning before trundling off to your recuperacoon. Little do you know that this will be one of the most important nights of your life, and it will have (almost) nothing to do with your business.

 

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and today is the day you’ll meet your destined moirail at last.

 

\---------

 

Your INTERESTS right now mostly consist of feeling all sorts of gratitude for this sweet place to sleep you went and found yourself in. These tight little air-tunnel places mean that no one can get at you when you’re not all in your head, and besides not many other trolls are SMALL enough to fit. Tonight, you found a respiteblock that sounds pretty empty - no one moving or breathing, no lusus noises - but it’s up above some kinda CANDY shop that keeps sending unfuckingbelievably delicious smells up your way, enough to have some wicked good dreams about when THINGS WERE BETTER.

 

You had a lusus, and a respiteblock, once. You’re pretty sure. But your lusus wasn’t around much anyway, and when he stopped coming back your blueblooded neighbors kicked you out and took over your crappy hive, and basically? You’ve kind of been kicked around ever since. You were born kinda small, and you’ve stayed kinda small while everyone grew up and grew past you, and so you just kinda stayed at the edges of things and went where the spirit would move you, so to say. No reason to waste words over it. You haven’t used your mouth-words in so long, you’re not sure they’d come out anyway, so why bother?

 

For right now, you’ve got this cosy little wonder-home, and even the noise of someone coming in the front door can’t disturb you too much. You’ve just got a good feeling about this place.

 

Your name is GAMZEE MAKARA, and you have no idea.

 

===> Be the candymaker.

 

Yeah, that's definitely caramelized sugar stuck to the front of your shirt. Again. Kanaya keeps sending you new aprons in different designs - you even wear some of them - but the temptation to go back and try out one more idea after you've called it a day and hung any protective gear on its hook... Well, at least you get less burns than you used to.

 

You pull the shirt over your head, dropping it in the hamper and grabbing your old worn black hoodie from where you'd thrown it over the back of a chair. It feels ridiculously cozy, as always, and you wriggle into it with a pleased grumble.

 

===> Be the feral.

 

Awwww man the troll that just walked in has the Best. Grumpy. Face. Ever. Like you don’t even know. You feel your bloodpusher go all tight just looking at the scowl on his face as he switches from one shirt to another, and the little grumbly noises he makes are SO CUTE you gonna die.

 

Or make a little squeaky noise. That’s cool too.

 

Uh-oh, grumbly dude is looking up suspiciously at the ceiling now gotta move.

 

===> Candymaker: wonder about noise.

 

You are, in fact, wondering about that noise. A faint squeak, then some scuffling in your ceiling... oh mother grub please say I don’t have squeakbeasts. It sounded too big for that, though. Maybe a nutbeast? Or some kind of winged thing.

 

Well, at least it seemed to be scared off by your arrival. Hopefully that’s all there is to say on the matter.

 

You dig through your shelf of vidgrubs, considering various titles. A show or a movie? You'd been sort of partway into a halfhearted marathon of Troll How I Met Your Lusus, but the siren call of your oldest, most favorite film ever beckons from its place of battered honor in the center of the top shelf.

 

What the hell. Time to live dangerously. You pluck the grub free, attach it to your viewing screen, and flop onto the couch as the opening credits roll. Normally, the swelling overture would lift your spirits almost instantly - you've even been known to start humming along, in the privacy of your block - but this morning? Today, you just stare at the screen, and feel the sense of aloneness not as freedom but as an aching absence.

 

You're never going to find a destined quadrant, after all. You spend too much time making heart-, diamond-, spade-, and club-shaped truffles for everyone else. And yes, while you're inordinately proud of the little ultra-dark-chocolate spades that spill out bitter coffee syrup when bitten into, you got so wrapped up in perfecting the recipe that it took you three days to find Terezi's breakup note. You may have made a name for yourself facilitating all shades of romance with gourmet confectionary treats, but you're going to die alone. That is in entire and saddening fact as inevitable as the hard-learned truth that kitchen interns, left alone, _will_ get the bright idea to try just running all the mixers on highest speed to get through their orders done faster. All that results of your flailing attempts at dating is a sticky, cooling, brittle mess and the acrid scent of burnt-out motors having tried too hard to force the impossible. And you have just given up on fate. Fate has given you enough gifts, it seems, and is no longer taking your calls.

 

This is pointless. The first few lines of dialogue are making you sick to your stomach. You click off the viewing screen and stare miserably at its blank surface instead. Now that you've gone and faced up to it, you are at a complete and utter loss.

 

===> Be the unknown onlooker.

 

Hey, this dude is all kinds of motherfuckin' unsettled. Apparently his movie wasn't any good, because he turned that off all sudden like and is now just sittin' in his chair like the grumpiest grumpbeast. No, that's not quite right- you know that particularly dejected slant to his shoulders, at least from the inside.

 

That's sad, there, sad and alone and hopeless, and the memory of the feeling combined with the thought of this ridiculously cute and sweet brother all lost in unrighteous contemplations just does something downright painful to your bloodpusher. Even alert and suspicious troll was better that seeing him like this.

 

Hey.

 

You mighta just up and had a plan.

 

===> Be the not-quite-alone troll.

 

When you hear the scratching start up in your ceiling again, tentatively at first, then growing more bold, you flop your head backwards and let out your most irritated sigh. Ah. Yes. You can't even be left to wallow in your misery properly - apparently fate intends to fuck with you a bit more today before it declares itself quite done with you. Well, you'll take that caliginous solicitation if it comes to that. Certainly nothing truly dangerous could have made it this far into the city, after all.

 

You're aware you're thinking like one of the supporting roles in a horror flick, but that's kind of wonderfully freeing. Giddy with a sense of renewed dedication to your evening, you push yourself upright in your seat and decide that you might as well foil the plot and get cunning. After all, if the wriggler Kevvin could defeat two adult intruders with nothing but hilariously laid traps, you're sure you'll have the drop on a mindless beast if you lure it out first.

 

A smile tugging at the corners of your lips, you set about setting up your plans.

 

===> Feral: be lured.

 

What.

 

What is even going on down there.

 

Is...

 

Is he _cooking?_

_Oh dear sweet grubloving gigglelords he's makin' CANDY._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahahahaha oh gods I posted it
> 
> This is the first chapter of my first published fanfic in over a decade, so PLEASE leave me some feedback! Even unkind feedback! I promise more is coming :-)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Karkat is happy, Gamzee contemplates Life, and everyone is very surprised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Few new warnings for this chapter. The big one is cliffhanger (sorry - just felt like the next chapter deserved its own space to breathe, which left this my only breaking point.) Also, there's a lot of seeing some of the darker assumptions Karkat and Gamzee both have about how the world works. If you'd like to scan some more specific triggers and don't mind potential spoilers, check out the end notes.

===> Candymaker: be inordinately pleased with yourself.

 

You _are_ quite happy with how this is turning out. You haven’t done something this simple in small batch in a while - usually, when noodling about with a single saucepan and a whisk in your nutrition block, you’re _inventing_ , which involves a lot more notes and frantic energy. This is easy, as you expect ventdwelling beasts to not have terribly refined tastes. You’d almost forgotten how nice it could be to just lazily _enjoy_ making something as basic as pulled taffy. You do make sure to add plenty of highly aromatic flavorings - and grin at your pan when a few moments later the scuffling overhead increases. Then you pour your batter into a pan and set it in the oven, grinning up at the ceiling while you wait.

 

Nothing emerges while the taffy is solidifying (which is just as well, as ruining candy tends to leave you even more irritable than usual.) So you set to pulling and twisting ropes out as soon as it's cool enough to handle. You're actually _humming_ to yourself at this point, cheer seasoned with a touch of mania. You honestly can't remember having this much fun in...  Well, in a long time.

 

A few segments of rope end up "accidentally dropped" on the counter near a large vent cover; the rest are stacked haphazardly on a plate,  save the one that slips into your mouth. Mmm. That- that is really not half bad. Too good to give entirely to whatever scrambling vermin is hesitantly moving around up there.  You pocket a handful more, announcing as you do,  "Oh dear. All this candy and no one to eat it.  Guess it'll just have to sit _forlornly on this counter_ while I go take a shower, hm?"

 

No one’s watching but ventbeasts - you can do a sort of shuffly-skip-dance thing to the ablutions block if you like. So you do. Then you turn and settle just behind the block door, peering through the tiny crack you left open, and firmly keeping all giggles locked _inside_ your thorax, thank you very much.

 

===> Feral: Investigate.

 

You sure as fuck have been investigating this shit. It smells sooooo good, and it looks all stretchy and chewy and warm... It's all you can do to remember the last few times you tried to interact with other trolls all directlike. Jumpin' on down to ask a brother if he might be up for sharin' a bite is likely to get you beat, and the legislacerators called to deal with "some crazy coldblood fuck" and yeah no that does not work for your plans to keep your hide in one piece and your head relatively unrattled.

 

Speakin' of plans, though, yours has been as motherfucking miraculous as a brother could ever hope for. Little cute dude seems to really like making candy (and you can't argue with that - it's miracles is what it is, takin' little bits of things and making 'em all new-like into something better. If you could make candy you would do _nothing else_ ) he's been downright cheerful, cooking up a storm. You’re not quite sure how you bein' a disturbance turned into happy kitchen time, but hey, that just means your plan was even better than you thought, right?

 

It does nice funny things to your bloodpusher, watchin' little grumble like this. You flip yourself all around again so you can hug your knees right up tight to your thorax, wiggling your hips in time with the tune he's humming. He just looks so _happy_ , which is a million and one times better than how he looked earlier. Sittin' here thinking about it, you're not quite sure why that's so important to you. Lots'a miserable motherfuckers in the world, after all, and ain't a one of them what's cared about whether you were _breathing_ , never mind the state of your thinkpan. But you care about whether or not this little brother is smiling, more and more the longer you watch him. A troll that cute, a troll with such awesome faces, a troll who can make miracles with just a pan and his fingers...  a troll who looks about as lonely as you feel, on your worse nights.  Watching him makes you feel better, so you feel like it's downright _unfair_ if you don't make his morning better, too.

 

Don't much matter if nothing else in this world is fair.

 

You come out of your contemplations halfway through whatever it is miraclebro is saying - something about the candy being lonely? And a shower?

 

Aaaand now he's gone and walked hisself off to the bathroom. And left that plate of miracle candy sitting on the counter. Still warm.

 

There's even a few bits what fell right by your grate there.

 

Ohhhhhh this is such a bad idea but you’re gonna do it anyway.

 

===> Candymaker: Realize that all your expectations were, in fact, vastly incorrect.

 

You are doing that.  You are doing that right the fuck now.  Because that is not any kind of beast climbing out of your air transmission ductwork cover.

 

That...  is a troll.

 

A tiny little body (noticeably smaller than you, and you get enough short jokes yourself) nearly lost under the worst massive tangle of hair you've ever seen, thin arms and legs sticking out of ratty worn-colorless clothing, grey skin crisscrossed with scars and- a fresh scrape. A fresh scrape showing blood that's cool and dark- a deep cobalt maybe,  but more probably indigo.

 

You don't move from your post, but you might begin to hyperventilate a bit. Coldbloods are one thing, but an indigo is something else entirely - there aren't all that many of them left, and legend would have it that that's because,  despite their unnaturally long lifespan, they tend to go too bugfuck nuts to fill buckets or stay alive themselves, more often than not. And something that freakishly strong flipping the fuck out into an infamous coldblood rage...  you'd be feeling a bit apprehensive contemplating it in theory, never mind when the reality is perching on your nutrition block food preparation area and-

 

... chirping?

 

You force your thinkpan to calm the fuck down for a moment and focus on what's in front of you, which is a skinny, tiny, scruffy little troll perched on your counter and chewing with his eyes closed, taffy-muffled chirrups of glee mumbling their way out of his completely blissed-out expression.

 

That... should not be that fucking adorable.

 

You’re used to getting appreciation for your work by now. Well, you’ll never quite be _inured_ to praise, but you rather expect good reviews of your candy. You’re becoming literally imperially famous. Trolls have _cried_ and threatened murder when you were out of their preferred variety. But you have literally never seen anyone happier with a mouthful of your taffy. It makes the whole spectacle rather less threatening, honestly, and something small and damnably soft stirs in your chest.  

 

He’s just... cute.

 

You rub your forehead. Crazy highbloods on your nutrition block prep surface should not be cute. Scarred and skinny little taffy-stealing scarecrows _should not be cute._

 

But he trills softly to himself as he swallows his mouthful and eagerly grabs more, and you find yourself wondering when the last time it was he ate actual food.

 

Grub _damnit._

 

Very, very slowly, you pick yourself up to stand upright and tug the door open. One way or another, you’ve got to face this. You invited him in, for sugar’s sake. Now, you’ve got to deal with it.

  
“Hey,” you say softly, and the little troll looks up at you and _freezes_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific triggers -   
> lots of food description  
> a lot of oppressor-class assumptions that can be read as racist & ableist when translated to our culture
> 
> Also, THANKS A TON to everyone who kudos'd, commented, and bookmarked! I didn't expect that much response for my first chapter of my first fic! Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with an update schedule not too much more spaced than this at maximum, although my moirail just had a baby so whothefuck knows what life will be like here soon.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohmygods this took forever. I'm sorry, dearest readers - my life got EVEN CRAZIER than I could have expected. New baby in the clade, and then a week later one of my elderly relatives died, and then when we got back from funeral travelling people got sick... but here you have more work! And I promise I won't abandon you, at least not without leaving word.
> 
> Now go read!

===> Gamzee: Don't panic.

 

Easier said than motherfucking done, when you gone and got yourself all up and caught stickyhanded eating some other troll's candy what ought not to be for the likes of you. Little grumble is lookin’ at you all anger and fear and _tension_ up and down his lines enough to set your insides thrumming all uncomfortable-like, and the fact that he hasn’t started yelling or hitting you yet just makes your stomach twist all the more for it. Your one hand creeps out all slowlike back to the plate, fingers shaking a bit as they open to drop a few bits of taffy - _fuck_ you mashed them up. Maybe he’ll take them back anyway.

 

The troll across the block narrows his eyes, and slowly says, “You didn’t have to do that.”

 

Didn’t have to do which what? You bring your hand back to your chest, slow as slow can be, trying not to move fast or make him any more scared of you than he is - trolls that get that mix of scared and angry hurt you worse than trolls that just want something you’ve got. You feel your shoulders curling in, arms moving almost instinctively around those ribs what might still be not all one-piece-like yet. He’s still not moving, and the tension in you twists up tighter and tighter and mirthful messiahs this is gonna be bad if you lose your shit now.

 

Sit your scrawny ass down. Tuck your knees up tight, arms around them. Claws pricking in your skin instead of someone else’s, forehead in your knees, and just breathe. If you stay like this, he can’t hurt you too bad, and more important you can’t hurt him and bring all the world down on you, your own guilt worst of all. You know what you can do when you get the wrath going in you, and as mixed as you feel about some of those things you’ve done to some of those trolls, it never worked out for you well in the end. They always had friends, and you didn’t, and- thinking like that isn’t helping you calm down none.

 

Fuuuuuuck.

 

You press your claws deeper, until the pricking through your skin wells up blood, and think every incoherent prayer your pan ever imagined that you don’t go crazy on a troll what ought to only have ever had good things happen, which sure as fuck means he never ever _ever_ should have fucking met you but too late for that, just make it less bad than it could be please oh please...

 

===> Karkat: Don’t panic.

 

You are doing your level goddamned best to stay calm, but your surprise visitor isn’t making it easy. Granted, you’re not quite so afraid for your own life, now - not when you got a reaction like that. He is obviously terrified of you: you, with your cornstarch smears on your sleeves and your soft middle from too much candy and not enough exercise; you, the pinnacle of easy city living that you are. You’d been trying to act nonthreatening, so you didn’t spook him into doing something dangerous, but instead he’s just curled up whimpering to himself, and... and...

 

is that blood coming out where his claws are?

 

“Hey,” you say again, more concern in your tone. “Hey, seriously, you’re hurting yourself. It’s okay. I’m not mad you ate the candy - I made it _for_ you, weirdo. Sort of. Anyway-”

 

You cut yourself off, because the troll on your nutrition block prep plateau is just curling tighter, digging claws deeper into his legs, and you have got to figure out how to talk without it turning into some kind of rant or another. You take a deep breath, and reconsider. There are no schoolfeeds for this. You have no fucking clue what a grown-ass troll is expected to do when a feral indigo crawls out of your heat conveying ducts and eats candy and then is scared of you.

 

Well, not entirely true - between the stories you’ve heard and the way this guy is acting, you’re beginning to get some ideas about what most grown trolls would do finding an invader in their space, and the idea makes your stomach twist. You were always glad you grew up in this era, and not back in the bad old days - you always had a feeling that you wouldn’t have survived long then, mutant blood being illegal then or not. You may be full of rage at the world, but that doesn’t mean you’re tough - it just means you shout a lot. And to be honest, violence for real, not just hyperbolic or fictional violence, has always made you uncomfortable. Violence means bloodshed, and even if you won’t be culled for being a freak in this day and age, you still don’t _like_ seeing your blood. It carries all kinds of fucked-up connotations you’ve actively avoided dealing with your whole life, and you always feel faintly sick to your bile sack when you see it.

 

Seeing this other troll's blood, on the other hand, makes your digestive system do something else uncomfortable, like you've got flutterbugs invading your body's chutes and the only way to get them out is by giving in to the urge to chirr soothingly and maybe find some adhesive wound covering strips, and-

 

There are, actually, schoolfeeds about that. You just weren't expecting them to become relevant anymore, much less with a half-wild member of a nearly extinct caste who you met by way of air ventilation chute candy traps.

 

You kind of want to throw in the moisture absorption cloth and go on the ultimate rant about the hot mess that is your life, but it feels like an old habit that doesn't quite fit in this moment. Instead, most of your thinkpan is filled with cotton candy and soft awe as a bedding for the persistent concern you feel at every tiny drop of blood you see, and it occurs to you that this is not, in fact, a fuckup of epic proportion after all.

 

Instead, it's kind of... miraculous.

 

===> Gamzee: Experience the unexpected

 

Well, since you _expected_ your little grumblybro to lose his motherfucking shit several minutes ago, you've been doing that, not that it's helping you out any. You don't think. Fuck, it's confusing as shit when your pan gets this wound up and still nothing snaps - the coils of all your fear and rage start right in on being tangle buddies if they don't get themselves no place to go, and their unpleasant hug party makes it hard to get a good look at what's going on beyond the reaches of your fucked up pan.

 

So you decide, since you haven't been beat up yet, it's time to use your gander bulbs to get a better idea of what is even up and happening at this particular moment. You lift your head just a bit up from your arms, and peer out through your hair-mess.  Little grumble is standing just outside his ablutions block, right where you last saw him. He don't look so frowny anymore, though; not scared, either. Honestly, he looks like a brother what just had himself a rightful epiphany. You haven't seen that face on a troll what hadn't just chugged a bottle of Faygo in...  well, ever, really.

 

After just looking on you with that face full of wonder for another moment or two, your grumblybro says in a voice so soft it nearly doesn’t make it across the block, “I _did_ make that candy _for_ you. It’s okay if you eat it. Really.”

 

Okay, now you know he’s crazy. He didn’t even know you were up and about here, did he? How could he have made that for you, not like fresh homemade sweet juicy taffy bits are the kind of thing anyone would ever even accidentally give to the likes of you...

 

Watching you, he continues carefully, “I heard you up there, and I thought... well, I wasn’t exactly expecting a troll to climb out of the ductwork but-”

 

He trails off, muttering to himself with brows all furrowed and eyes like thunderclouds, but you can see now that all that anger’s turned inward, and it touches something inside you under the tanglebuddies of your less favorite feelings. Your pan is still screaming at you that everything’s going to go motherfucking pear-shaped any one of these seconds and you’d better run, you’d better fight... but the sound of little grumble rasping under his breath about “just going to fuck this up like you always do” is louder, somehow. The tiny sound of something what you don’t even know how to name under that is even louder, which is just an absolute motherfucking miracle. You wonder how something so small and soft can be bigger and braver than years of pain, and for a moment you almost forget how to be scared.

  
Then he takes a step towards you, one arm reaching out, and all that snaps back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and yeaaaaaah that was another cliffhanger. Don't kill me, guys u.u
> 
> Next chapter I'm guessing will be more like two weeks, although you never know what life's going to throw at you. If you wanna poke at me, feel free to go to my tumblr at tinygandalfarmy and leave messages or see updates on progress.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Sorry it's been FOREVER and I know it. But this story is not abandoned! Life just keeps happening, and I need to start to learn not to promise any kind of timespan or Fate will conspire to make everything too complicated for me to update. But you've passed the roughest part of the story - this is where things start turning around. Enjoy!

===> Karkat: do not approach flailing ball of panic

 

Well, _duh_. Obviously getting any closer to your hiveguest results in him freaking the fuck out - you’re sure as hell not going within range of those (pretty uncontrolled seeming, honestly) limbs if it’ll just freak him out more. Your pan doesn’t even have the decency to be properly scared in return - it just notes that with scars like that, the skinny little coldblood’s probably been beaten up enough times that it’s pure reflex by now. And _that_ mental image hurts a lot more than it should; a soft, involuntary chirrup of empathetic pain crawls up your airchute and just announces itself without so much as a do-you-care-how-obviously-pale-you’re-being.

 

Apparently your airsacks don’t care. And the object of your affections is still too busy making an unholy mess of hissing and growling simultaneously to notice. At least the flailing has calmed to sporadic, spasmodic outward flicks of motion from the ball of hair, horns, and limbs occupying the space a troll held a moment ago. But you’re not trying that again any time soon. Gotta get him to trust you more before you can even try to help.

 

Fuck. You bite your lip, begin composing one of your notorious motivating rants for yourself, and jam your hands in your hoodie pocket-

 

-hey.

 

That could work.

 

===> Gamzee: Listen.

 

You’re listening to the screaming in your pan saying _they’re gonna hurt you scare them off stop them stop this STOP IT_ , but somewhere in there there’s music now, and that’s weird enough for you to peek one ganderbulb over the knob of your walkfrond and get a look at what’s goin’ on in the world outside. If your pan’s started singing songs you don’t know of your own accord, you’ve got other problems to be up and worrying about.

 

But no, you’re not any crazier than you already knew yourself to up and being; you can see over across the open blocks of this sweet little apartment that the TV screen’s all lit up again, and the weedy little troll is singin’ all thoughtful to his lute about moons and love and whatevershit... curses? destiny? Your pan’s not unscrambling the words just quite right, but it sounds nice. Actually, it sounds kinda like what grumblebro was up and getting his watch on of earlier, before he got all small and sad.

 

Grumblebro!

 

You uncurl a bit more, peering urgently out from your hair (wow that’s one hell of a mess you’ve got going there, wonder where you picked up that leaf that looks different) to try to spy the little guy you got in this mess for in the first place. It takes a moment - last you saw, he was between you and the ablutions block, and reaching out. Now he’s sitting on the floor up by the opposite wall, and you’re up to keening a little before you realize he don’t have no wounds on him, you didn’t lose time, you didn’t actually lose your shit all the way thank everymotherfucking holy thing on this planet. He’s just sittin’ up, one frond tucked in his sweater pocket, the other grasping the TV remote, watching the song with an awfully wistful look on his cute little face.

 

He hears you makin’ sounds, notices you moving, and his eyes flick to you, but he don’t move much, just a little twitch at the corner of his mouth (oh mirthful messiahs was that a smile your pusher is doing funny things), and then he refocuses his attention on the movie what’s playing. After a moment, though, he starts narrating: adding his own commentary on whatever the fuck’s up with this lute dude, and the story he’s telling about what really happened when the curse on the king was broken. Somewhere in there, he admits this is is favorite movie ever, blushes slightly, and carries on into describing exactly how fucked up and wrong the King and Queen’s matespritship is, and how the Queen is waaaaaaaaaay overprotective of her moirail and not letting him get his quadrant on with any of the princesses up and coming to the castle.

 

A ways further into this, little grumble’s hummin’ along to the knight dude singing to his secret matesprit about how he’ll be back in a bit once he finds a worthy princess, you’re uncurled with your walkfronds dangling off the counter as you lean over to see the screen better, and at some point or another you got another taffy up in your mouth. How did that motherfucker get his flavor on in your tastebuds? Oh no you hope you’re not in trouble or anything or-

 

===> Karkat: Notice.

 

Narrating _In Which the Alternian Folktale of a Princess and a Pea is Retold in a Comedic, Dramatic, and Musical Framework, featuring three interlocking secret plots, a problemstruck elopement, a reversible curse, an inexplicable song about footcoverings, a violetblood with a gender ambiguous nickname, and themes approved by the Imperial Evanescence for wigglers of all ages, or Troll Once Upon a Mattress_ to your tiny hive invader is calming both of you down, some: you can’t get too overwhelmingly or obviously excited about his slow uncurling from panic when you have to delineate the the differences between the knight’s secret plot, and the plots of the minstrel, the jester, and the king. Still, you cheer a little internally as one absentminded scratched-up hand reaches for the taffy plate and pops a piece into his mouth, and then feel your entire bloodpusher crumble with pity as he realizes he just ate more candy and starts ramping up towards freaking out again.

 

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay.” You glance his way, and shrug one shoulder a bit. Stay casual - hopefully that will help keep from making it worse. “I said you could have the taffy, remember?”

 

He’s still staring at you with uncertain fear, not even chewing.

 

“It’s for you,” you insist. You’re aiming for quiet but firm with your voicebox, but some of your trademark irritation sneaks out there and you see him start to flinch and _damn it you suck at this just like you suck at every kind of romance why are you even TRYING..._

 

You turn away, and rub your face with your hands, and very strictly keep your self-hating rant on the inside. The last thing you need to do is make this situation any worse, after all, and you’re certain that you could make it worse. Trying to help a panicky unstable coldblood is not the smartest idea you’ve ever had, after all - this could go _so badly_ and of course it will, because it always does, and you don’t even know why you try anymore.

 

You hear him slide off the counter to the floor, and curl tighter around your own legs. Maybe if you stay small and out of the way he’ll just leave you be? Or at least you hopefully won’t look intimidating.

 

Damn it, why is your bloodpusher still determinedly insisting that it’s _important_ that your little hive invader not be scared any more?

 

Little padding footsteps come closer to you, then pause, then there’s a small clattering of things on the floor, one bouncing off your shoe. You frown, and uncurl slightly. That’s... a taffy?

 

A bunch of taffies. About a dozen. Set on the floor right by you. And your pale crush - mother grub, you don’t even know his _name_ \- standing just behind them, looking at you with obvious concern in his wide, deep-indigo eyes. When he sees yours clearly, his eyes widen a bit, and you can’t help your reflexive flinch. But he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t run away, doesn’t reach for you. Instead, he just picks up a piece of candy, and holds it uncertainly towards you, and then makes the smallest, absolutely _cutest_ questioning noise.

  
You make an embarrasingly cute squeak of your own in return, and then hold out your hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you are! More will be coming, but I will make no promises as to when. Thanks so much for being patient with me.


End file.
